At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning - his dream - required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life.Um no. Not hardly.

His father’s education had nothing to do with the Cold War, but everything to do with post-colonial African politics.

Wikipedia said:

Due to a program offering Western educational opportunities to outstanding Kenyan students that was organized by nationalist leader Tom Mboya, Obama Sr. was awarded a scholarship in economics, and at the age of 23 he enrolled at the University of Hawaii. He left behind a pregnant Kezia and their infant son.I know what it is like to grow up without a father. I was 2 when my parents divorced and 47 before I met my father, Don Surber Sr.

So it is understandable that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama Jr. might not know much about his father. But certainly the senator has heard of Wikipedia.

Next up was the very next paragraph:

That is why I’m here. And you are here because you too know that yearning. This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.No, America and Germany hooked up not because of freedom, but rather a little thing called World War II. Germany tried to take over Europe. We helped stop the Germans and conquered Germany.

Berlin was pretty much rubble.

Next up:

The people of Berlin refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city’s mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom.He has that one bass ackward. The mayor of Berlin did not make this call but rather Gen. Lucius Clay, who told the mayor: “I may be the craziest man in the world, but I am going to try the experiment of feeding this city by air.”

Next up:

The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.While there were a few foreigners among the 3,000 people who were murdered on 9/11, most of the victims were Americans. He left out the part where the hijackers were, like his father, foreign students in the USA. They trained in Florida as well.

Next up:

The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow.

15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. None were poor kids from Somalia. Osama bin Laden is the son of a wealthy Saudi contractor.

Next up:

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

What walls? France has replaced the aider and abetter of Hussein, Jacques Chirac, with L’Americain, Nikolas Sarkozy. For the first time, NATO is engaged in a mission outside of Europe as NATO fights in Afganistan. Obama’s worldview is stuck in 2002.

Next up:

That is why America cannot turn inward. That is why Europe cannot turn inward. America has no better partner than Europe. Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic.

Again, factually in error and logically flawed. Bridges have been repaired and strengthened. France is thinking of returning to NATO militarily for the first time in 40+ years.

In fact, it is Obama who wants the USA to curl up in a ball like an armadillo and concentrate on throwing billions — if not trillions — on social welfare programs that repeatedly fail. Poverty in Somalia is last on the Obaman agenda.

Next up:

This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The two superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love.

The Cuban missile crisis was too close. But it happened once. Not often. The Berlin Wall’s construction came because the Soviets judged correctly that a novice president was weak on foreign policy. This led to the Cuban confrontation as Kennedy finally stood up.

By the way, in other venues, Obama has called Kennedy’s embargo of Cuba a failure. It succeeded in isolating a very real threat to national security — without throwing one bomb.

Finally:

And despite past differences, this is the moment when the world should support the millions of Iraqis who seek to rebuild their lives, even as we pass responsibility to the Iraqi government and finally bring this war to a close.

Obama wanted to abandon Iraq by March 31, 2008.

It will be interesting to see if FactCheck.org or anyone else fact-checks this speech.